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Republicans expanded their share of House seats in New York from six to nine in Tuesday's election, in part due to low voter turnout that hurt some Democratic incumbents more than their GOP challengers.

Voter turnout is lower in presidential midterm elections. And President Barack Obama's low approval ratings were widely expected to make it difficult for congressional Democrats to turn out their base this year.

Obama referred to the low voter turnout at a news conference Wednesday, noting that two-thirds of voters stayed home.

New York Democrats, in addition, were not inspired by Gov. Andrew Cuomo's re-election campaign against Republican Rob Astorino. Cuomo won in only 11 of the 57 counties outside of New York City.

"Turnout was low in part because there was not a competitive race at the top of the ticket — everyone expected Cuomo to win easily," Grant Reeher, director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute at Syracuse University, said in an email Wednesday. "At the same time, there was not a great deal of enthusiasm for Andrew Cuomo, and that fatigue was coming from the left and from more moderate Democrats who care about political reform."

In the closing days of the campaign, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made an appearance at a get-out-the-vote rally in northern Westchester County on behalf of Democratic Rep. Sean Maloney.

Former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden appeared at larger rallies for Democratic Rep. Dan Maffei in Syracuse.

Maloney squeaked out a victory over former congresswoman Nan Hayworth, but Maffei lost to former federal prosecutor John Katko, 59 percent to 39 percent.

Maffei won the 24th Congressional District seat in the 2012 presidential election year with 143,044 votes. His vote total Tuesday declined 47 percent. Katko's winning vote total was only 11.4 percent less than former congresswoman Anne Marie Buerkle's losing total in 2012.

Maloney barely won re-election in the Hudson Valley's 18th Congressional District with an unofficial tally of 84,415 votes. That represented a 41 percent drop from his 2012 total, but Hayworth lost for a second consecutive election with a 37.3 percent drop in votes.

Besides capturing Maffei's seat in a Syracuse district that extends west to Wayne County, Republicans also picked up the 21st District seat in the North Country/Adirondacks region and the 1st Congressional District seat on eastern Long Island.

Republican Elise Stefanik won in the North Country with an unofficial tally of 89,764 votes. That was only 26 percent less than losing Republican Matthew Doheny had in 2012. In losing to Stefanik, Democratic candidate Aaron Woolf captured 57 percent fewer votes than victorious Democratic Rep. Bill Owens had in 2012.

On eastern Long Island, Republican state Sen. Lee Zeldin received 89,625 votes, a drop of 32 percent from the total that unsuccessful Republican candidate Randy Altschuler received in 2012. But Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop failed to get re-elected this year after his vote total plummeted by 49 percent to 73,860.

Elsewhere, Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter of Fairport was leading Republican Mark Assini by just over 600 votes after Tuesday's election.

Slaughter breezed to re-election in 2012 against Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks. But this year, Slaughter's vote total fell almost 52 percent, based on the unofficial tally.